Serbia votes in election pitting longtime leader against student movement

Serbians are voting in parliamentary elections amid a mass student protest ⁠movement that seeks to oust longtime populist leader Aleksandar Vucic, who has held power as prime minister and then president for more than a decade. The snap elections, called by Vucic in September, follow almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption ⁠and creeping authoritarianism, triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024. A loss for Vucic ⁠would mark a profound political shift in the Balkan country of some 6 million people, reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban in April.